1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an access point of a wireless network and a load balancing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Because of the advantages of low costs and high bandwidth, wireless local area network (WLAN) which supports IEEE 802.11 standard is developing rapidly. Meanwhile, wireless interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) based on IEEE 802.16 standard, which can be used to replace conventional wired network at a user's end, is also developing. As IEEE 802.11 and 802.16 standards become the primary technology of public wireless network, the importance of load balancing of the access points is increasing.
IEEE 802.11 and 802.16 standards do not define the detailed procedure of association between a wireless network and a user side mobile station (MS). In most systems, the association between a mobile station and an access point of a wireless network is determined by the received signal strength (RSS). However, such a method does not give consideration to how much bandwidth of the access point has been occupied and how many mobile stations the access point is serving.
A centralized load balancing method makes use of a local area network (LAN) and a switch to associate with each access point, as disclosed in US Patents 2004/0063455A1 and 2004/0156399A1. When an access point receives an uplink signal, such as a probe request frame or an association request frame, from a mobile station, a corresponding signal will be sent to a network interchanger. A manager node in the network interchanger will then receive and process the signals to decide which access point should accept the association of the mobile station.